Salt Lake toddler found sleeping under van in California

BUENA PARK, Calif.  A 3-year-old Salt Lake City boy was found sleeping under a van outside his family's hotel room near Anaheim after wandering off in the night, police said.

About 20 Buena Park police officers searched for the boy for 1 1/2 hours after his father William May noticed one of his five children was missing at about 4 a.m. Tuesday. The search ended when an officer found the boy curled up on the parking lot outside the Radisson Suites hotel, said Sgt. William Kohanek.

Police believe the toddler left through a security gate and began looking for his family's car. After the boy was found, the hotel staff watched a surveillance video and saw the boy running around outside the hotel.

"It looked like he was probably scared," Kohanek said. "He must have just exhausted himself and crawled under a car to sleep."

The officers searched the interior and exterior of the hotel property, including "rooftops, laundry rooms  everywhere a little kid could be," Kohanek said.

The boy's mother, Lisa May, had locked the dead bolt around midnight and did not know how the toddler was able to manipulate the lock, Kohanek said. The boy's parents said he loves to punch elevator buttons and play with knobs.

The hotel offered to send the Mays to Disneyland or Knott's Berry Farm, Kohanek said.